I’ve always liked the beginning of fall and a new school year. Refreshingly cool weather, a fresh new start with new classes, new subjects, new things to learn, and new goals to reach for.

Except for an online course I took a few years ago, it’s been a long time since I went back to the school in the fall – except for the “back-to-school” nights at my sons’ schools, which have a whole different feel for a parent than a student. I’ve always found things to learn, but generally not in the intense fashion that I associate with going “back to school.”

I’m back on a college campus this fall, but not as a student. Last week I started a new job, on the staff of Black Hawk College. I’m thrilled at the opportunity to be part of the learning environment, and I appreciate the community college’s commitment to making learning accessible to many people who for one reason or another face significant if not insurmountable barriers to becoming a student at a traditional four-year college.

For years parents have been told how important it is to read to their young children. Today I read that it may be just as important to do household math with young children. An article in the Wall Street Journal reports that

Math skill at kindergarten entry is an even stronger predictor of later school achievement than reading skills or the ability to pay attention, according to a 2007 study in the journal Developmental Psychology.

My first thought was surprise. How could math be even more important than reading? My next thought was that now conscientious parents will feel pressured to improve their children’s math skills prior to age 5.

After my sons’ enthusiastic response to National Chocolate Chip Day on Tuesday, I decided to look for s0me more “days” to celebrate. But before I even got started, I opened an email from APTE (a provider of educational resources) and found out that today is International Museum Day.

I started thinking about what museum to visit this weekend. Then I realized that my son has a Boy Scout campout this weekend, so the museums will have to wait for another weekend. But in the meantime, I got thinking about the idea of museums.

The APTE email informed me that “the word museum literally means a seat or shrine to the muses. In Greek mythology the nine muses were brought to life to rid the world of evil and sorrow. Their job was to protect art and knowledge.”

I’ve been a Junior Achievement classroom volunteer for several years, but today was my first experience with JA BizTown. I agreed to volunteer mostly because my son wanted me to, but now I’m glad I saw firsthand what it was all about.

When I was a junior in high school, I got my first exposure to business operations, as part of a Junior Achievement company called Vendex. We sold $1 shares in our company to raise capital, then manufactured denim tote bags, and sold them. My mother used her Vendex bag for years, and I wish I still had one now as a memento of that experience.

At the time I had no interest in the administrative side of business. I had to help sell shares, and later tote bags, but other than that I stuck to working in production. I learned about the problems it created when workers were absent, or when they sat around talking instead of working, and the station I was working at had nothing to do because one of the previous stations on the line had gotten behind.

That was a year-long program (meeting weekly), so we got a good look at what it took to have a successful business. (We did earn a profit, though I don’t remember how much of a dividend we were able to distribute at the end.) Our adult volunteers (from Stanley Tools in New Britain, CT) had already procured the product idea, design, and production machinery (sewing machines), but we did the rest – under their excellent guidance.

BizTown, on the other hand, is a one-day simulation (though some businesses do make and sell simple products), giving students less in-depth but more breadth in terms of what goes on in the “real world” their parents work in. They each have a job (for which they had to interview in the weeks of preparation back at school before the actual event), they receive two paychecks which they deposit at the BizTown bank, and during breaks from work they go out into the “city” and spend money at other businesses.

The first time I discovered I could zoom in and out on a web-based map, I thought it was really cool. By now I take the ability for granted, and I can’t remember the last time I used a paper map except when on the road. (And someday I’m sure I’ll have a tablet of some sort so that even on the road I can use web-based maps.)

It’s pretty impressive that we can easily go from the scale of the entire country down to individual city blocks. But I looked at a website this evening that goes way, way bigger and way, way smaller.

It’s not a map, by any means, just a representative sample of objects of different sizes. But by being able to compare similarly sized objects, and then zoom in and out to much bigger and much smaller objects, you get a better feel for the relative size of things.

The Scale of the Universe 2 goes all the way up to the size of the universe (of course!) and down to a tiny unit of length called the planck, which is 0.000000000016 yoctometers. If you never heard of a yoctometer before, don’t feel bad – I hadn’t either. It is really, really small – but it’s huge compared to a planck.

I started thinking about learning while exercising as an idea for a blog post, mostly due to lack of any other ideas. I’ve been reading some very interesting magazine articles while doing the elliptical machine at the Y (and sometimes on the exercise bike or treadmill, depending which is available).

At home I listen to books on tape while riding the exercise bike because my Schwinn Airdyne uses both arms and legs. But the exercise equipment at the Y does not use the arms (though I find it helpful to hold the side bars of the treadmill to maintain a consistent position), so I read magazines.

Most of what is available on the magazine racks does not interest me (sports, hunting, specialized magazines on photography and computers, fashion, etc.), but I generally manage to find an old copy of Discover, Smithsonian, or National Geographic. Occasionally I read TIME or even Popular Mechanics.

I find it difficult to imagine childhood without books. My father read to my sister and me often, if not every night. I grew up with shelves of books near at hand in my own room, books all over the house, and with a library within easy walking distance (less than a mile on foot, though by car it was further) where I could get lots more books.

Perhaps I would have learned to enjoy the company of my peers more if I had not had the far more interesting company of books. (Or perhaps I would simply have been a very unhappy child.) I did play outdoors sometimes, generally by myself, or sometimes with my sister. But by far my favorite activity was reading.

I have, on a few occasions, been a visitor in a house where reading material is virtually nonexistent. As a child, I once spent a week as a guest of a family that lived in a trailer park, and I think the only book in the house was the one I brought with me. It was summer vacation, the parents both worked, and the children (at least four of them) spent the day watching TV, eating bowls of cereal, and getting into fights with each other. I spent my time reading Watership Down and waiting for the interminable week to end.

I know there are people who just are not bookworms. No doubt our family would be healthier if we enjoyed participating in sports or other physically demanding activities the way some families do. (I do enjoy walking and hiking, and my husband enjoys racquetball, but we haven’t had much success in finding others to engage in these activities on a regular basis. I tried to learn racquetball but I really don’t like it much; my husband has never been a big fan of walking and a back injury made it a poor choice of exercise for him.) But I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for children whose parents do not model for them the joy of exploring new worlds and ideas between the covers of a good book.

As a matter of fact, my husband and I love books so much that we have to avoid going to bookstores. If that sounds odd, consider how little space there would be left in our house, or money in our bank account, if we purchased all the books we see in stores that we would like to own and read. As it is, our bookshelves are overflowing with books purchased since we moved here, and there are boxes and boxes of books that we decided we simply couldn’t buy more shelves for.

You can imagine, then, my interest when I learned about the nonprofit organization Room to Read. I learned about it from an article in the New York Times, linked to by a friend on facebook. Since 2000, Room to Read has established over 12,000 libraries in developing countries, distributed 10 million books, and benefited an estimated 5.6 million children. It’s not just about giving children books, either – it’s about teaching them to read and to develop the habit of reading.

Room to Read also focuses on giving girls as much opportunity to get a good education as boys have – a lack in many of these countries. Since such efforts run counter to traditional ways in many places, I am pleased to see that Room to Read works in collaboration with local communities and makes a point of having local staff and partnerships so that their programs fit the culture.

One reason I’ve long thought of Heifer International as a great nonprofit to support is because it helps gives people the resources to improve their communities through sustainable agriculture. Other nonprofits that help people overcome poverty are those that provide microloans. And one reason that the work of charity:water is important is that it not only gives people safe, clean water, but it also frees up time for children to get an education (instead of spending hours every day fetching water from a muddy stream).

But I’d never thought much about the impact of providing books for people in developing countries. My mental image of such places didn’t include books, other than some kind of primer for teaching reading in school, and a few basic textbooks. (And the Bible – I did, after all, at one time plan to be a Bible translator.) Books for children are fairly rare in many places, not just because they cost money but because they’re not even being written.

Room to Read is working to fill this void with their Local Language Publishing program. They select local writers and illustrators to develop new, culturally relevant books. Competitions and workshops help promote literacy, as well as providing writers of the quality desired for the books to be published by this program. By the end of this year, Room to Read will have published well over 500 original titles, in 25 different languages.

I’m sure you are bombarded, as I am, with requests to donate to a wide variety of organizations. I try to stick to a few and not let the others guilt me into giving reluctantly, or simply into feeling guilty for not giving. But this is one nonprofit I’m adding to my list now, and I will admit to writing this blog post, in part, in the hope that you will consider doing the same. You can give in honor of a loved one at Christmas, give quickly and easily through paypal, or even create your own fundraiser.

“A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.” (Henry Ward Beecher)